Today's verses:
Psalm 40:1,5
Hosea 2:14 - 15
Matthew 13: 31-32, 44
So, we leave Song of Sex Solomon and move on to Hosea... who is busy 'alluring' his unfaithful wife... just who is it that is eros-obsessed?! The psalm speaks of God's faithful response to the writer's cry, whilst Matthew offers two itty bitty parables.
If a key characteristic of the Kingdom or Heaven/God/Shalom is love, be that agape or philadelphia (cos if JC is to be believed methinks eros is of this world... no marriage in heaven evidently) then maybe I can substitute 'kingdom' with 'love' in the parables and read then afresh?
Jesus told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field. Though it is the smallest of all your seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and perch in its branches.” ... “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field.”
Love like a mustard seed, then, tiny, dark and seemingly lifeless, buried in the fertile earth of a human heart and left to grow (but that's another parable about active waiting). Full grown love likened to a shrub big enough to offer shelter, to provide rest for the weary, and, presumably, to feed or to season life itself.
Love like a hidden treasure so valuable a person would sell everything to acquire it? But, as the song says 'money can't buy me love', so that cannot be right. Love as the most precious thing, not something that can be bought and sold (like a diamond ring, my friend) but the quality for which kings abandon their thrones (I vaguely recall a book on love that reflected on the abdication of Edward VIII as this depth of love).
Love, God, you are love:
Love wide as the ocean...
Love that will not let me go...
Perfect love, all human loves transcending...
The hymn-writers revel in speaking of it
And its language is so familiar we no longer consider
What love
Means
Is
Does
Costs
Love came down at Christmas...
As this Advent season draws towards its end
As we prepare to expend out energies
In services of worship
In service of others
In family celebration
May love
Priceless
Nurturing
Refreshing
Protecting
Be ours
Amen